Dream Home

The HGTV Dream Home

For the past couple of years I have marked my calender and set the VCR for the reveal of the HGTV Dream Home. I must confess, the other homes have been beautiful, and I would have been very happy to have won the homes, but I am in love with this year’s home. I love the wraparound porch and the inviting door with the glass panels. I could envision myself sipping coffee there in the mornings or having a glass of wine and watching the sun set in the evenings. But most of all it makes me wonder what my idea dream home would look like.
So, this is my question to you, what would you do if you won the HGTV Dream Home? Would you sell everything and move to the lovely Sonoma, California? Or, would you keep it as a vacation house and rent it out. I would love to hear your thoughts.
As for me, what would I do? Well, I’m not really sure. First, I would host a home tour to raise money for charity. Then, hopefully have a romantic trip with my husband. We never really had a honeymoon, unless you count the night that we stayed in Embassy Suites in lovely Abilene, TX after our wedding. After that, I’m not sure what I would do. I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.

-Wishing you New Year Cheers!
Amy

My Dear Friend Jen @ Fiddle Dee Dee has given me an award!

Jen @ Fiddle Dee Dee has given me the Spirit of Christmas award. If you have never been to her blog, please take a moment pop on over and say hello. She was one of my first blog friends here in blogland and has truly been an inspiration to me, so I am so glad that my very first award was given to me by my friend Jen.
If you would have asked me a few days ago to write this list, I’m not sure what order I would have listed my items, I actually read her note to me last night and then woke up this morning thinking about it. But by 10:00 my Christmas week has changed. We received a phone call that my husband best friend’s mother passed away from cancer last night. She only found out this fall that she had cancer and has been undergoing treatments, but unfortunately lost her battle last night. Now we are organizing a trip to Midland to attend a funeral on Tuesday. My heart goes out to Jeff and his family, and to his sister who is about to bless her first child into the world. What this holiday will mean for them.
On a lighter note, I would like to pass this award to a few people, and have fun with it. My friend @ Pink Polka Dot , Judy @ Gracious Southern Living , Leslie @ Diary of a Southern Drama Queen and last but not least, The Divine Rhoda @ Southern Hospitality.

Here are the the rules:

~You must be a true Christmas lover to receive this award

~The person you give the award to must be in love with Christmas

~You must link back to the person who gave you the award

~You must list 5 things that you love about Christmas

~Pass the award along to as many as you like, you must pass it on to at least one person to keep the Christmas cheer going around.

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT CHRISTMAS
5. The Decorating! I love to decorate my house for the holidays, and to look at different ways other people decorate their houses and trees for the holidays. And I really have been amazed how the girls have had so much input in how they would like to start different traditions this year.

4. The friendships. I love the excitement in my child’s eyes with all the Christmas festivities, expectations of what is to come. I love the parties that we go to and the friends that we have get to see.

3. THE Day off! With all of the hussle and bussle from the weeks before, last year we decided to just stay in our PJ’s most of the day, watch movies and play with our toys. Later, we get dressed and have a nice dinner.

2. The Family (My mom) who travels to visit us.
1. The Celebration! I love that we have the freedom to celebrate Christmas and it’s true meaning of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Tooth Fairy…

Me: McKenzie, you need to brush your teeth…

McKenzie: Mom, I did

Me: Do you have any new loose teeth?

McKenzie: Yes, this one (she pointed it out)...
But I just don’t understand it though.

Me: What do you not understand?

McKenzie: Why the tooth fairy likes Amelia’s teeth better than mine, because she brings her $3 when she loses a tooth, but only bring me a dollar.

Me: Well, maybe she uses all of her money over there and runs out by the time she gets over here.

McKenzie (after a short pause): Maybe I should write her and tell her to stop bye here first next time.

Christmas Tour Part II

Kids Trees

Every year I let the girls decorate trees in their rooms. They each took the left over lime green ornaments from the family room garland and added their own touch.

McKenzie decided to add ribbons to hers and then she used a cup cake garland and candies from our ginger bread tree that we had last year.

Morgan Painted and glittered her ornaments

The Ginger Bread House

Friday after school, McKenzie invited two of her best friends, Ginny Bell and Sarah to come over and decorate a ginger bread house.

If you look closely one of the ginger bread men is missing a few buttons

Believe it or not, some of the candy actually made it on the house.


-Wishing You Many Christmas Cheers! Amy

Christmas Tour Part 1

A party! I thought I would join in the fun.

Living Room Garland

I had seen some hurricane lamps in a local boutique for a $200 dollars, I bought these last summer in Salado for $25.00 and used the left over’s from my tree.


In the Family Room, I wanted to use lime green and red. Since I didn’t have anything in this color scheme, I used old red ornaments that were discolored from age and painted white polka dots and added glitter. The glitter helped cover up the imperfections. I bought lime green ornaments at hobby lobby for ½ off and painted red dots and glittered them. Then, I used left over ribbon to decorate the ornaments.

I still Working on the picture frames

I painted $1 frames from Michael’s red, lime and white, then added ribbon to them also. What do you think?

-Cheers, Amy

Tree Decorating 101

I was talking to my mom on the phone today and she asked me how I decorated my tree, I started to explain my process when she stopped me and said,
“I think that you might need to write it all down…”

First, here is a tip that I learned when I worked in a home décor shop, if you cut finger hole in a dress sock, it will protect your hands and arms from the prickly branches while to be “fluffing your tree.”

While “fluffing” the tree, pull each tip on a branch in different directions, where it almost looks like a star.



Once I have my tree somewhat fluffed, I add a garland. My tree is a prelit, 7.5 tree, so I use two garland. I work the garland in to the base of the tree, and use the twigs of the branch to wrap around the garland to secure it. You could use floral wire if you wanted, but this would work well, and helps cover the base of the garland if it is a different color.

I then added my “Nest Arrangement” to the tree. Here, I grouped one nest, two different feather picks, and an acanthus leaf pick together. I wanted this to be my focal point, and staggered them around the tree. Next I add my pine cone picks to the tree, I take my pine cone pick and gently open or spread everything out, where it a little more open and light, not so clustered together. Then I add it in an upward motion, to give the tree more dimension, and use the tree twig to wrap around the end to secure it. Finally I added my Christmas ornaments. I usually start with the largest ones to fill in whatever wholes I have and then work to the smallest. I didn’t want to fill the whole tree up; I wanted to still see some of the green, for a little more natural look. Here’s another tip. When I add the ornaments that have a long string, I wrap them around the twig and then fold the tip of the twig over to secure it. This helps the ornament from falling off, especially in high traffic areas or if little ones like to touch. They don’t slip off.
The Last thing I do is make a bow for the top of the tree and then add my hydrangeas and feathers, I uses two different shape of hydrangea, because that is just what I had around the house, the loose feathers I had left over from my mantel project. I just keep moving them around until I like the way that they look. There really is no method to my madness here.

Hope this information has been helpful.
I’m off to finish decorating…
-Cheers, Amy

O Christmas Tree…

Well, here she is. I think I am finally done with decorating my tree for the holidays. I decided to do something a little different this year and use birds nest that I bought from The Rusty Bucket, and picks, feathers, and ornaments that I had collected over the year.
-Cheers, Amy

Sneak Peek

I’ve started putting up the Christmas Decorations, come back Friday to see what I’ve been up too.
-Cheers, Amy

Thanksgiving Dinner

Everyone has traveled back home and are back to their busy schedules. My Thanksgiving dinner turned out very well for it being my first time, and I am afraid that "The Spoon has been passed down" now. Which means that I think I have a new tradition of hosting Thanksgiving Dinner at our house.

Here are some Family photos of our holiday.

I spray painted the large green bean cans brown and reused them for the flower arrangements

Filled mason jars with popcorn kernels and tied straw around them for candle holders

Mom and Sister enjoying their meal

I hope all of you had a safe and blessed Thanksgiving also.

-Cheers, Amy

Hill Country Style

I love the Texas Hill Country in the fall. The change of seasons are not are noticeable in town, but once you leave the city of San Antonio and head to the rolling county sides, the colors of the falling leaves are in full swing.

One of my favorite Hill Country towns is Fredrickburg. I have always loved to visit and love all of the German style architecture, not to forget the German food.

Today while looking for pictures to post, I found my Hill Country Dream House. Just a cool $3,200,000.

Photos: Remax